


Real names and stuff

by thesmiley



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Crack, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 13:32:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1057349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesmiley/pseuds/thesmiley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur said, "Look, Eames," and it was just as awkward as the first time. "Do you have another name?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Real names and stuff

**Author's Note:**

> I can't. Complete crack.

Arthur said, "Look, Eames," and it was just as awkward as the first time. "Do you have another name?"

"Hmm?" said the Eames in question, sprawled out across the couch and watching a soccer game with the sound turned most of the way down. His dubious neck beard had long sprung into a thick brush around his collar, and he was wearing a bathrobe over pajamas. Arthur coughed and fiddled with his coffee. He lowered the plastic milk frother into his mug and turned it on, filling the increasingly awkward silence with a bubbling whir.

"I was just wondering," Arthur lied, "since, you know, Eames is a last name and all, if you'd rather go by something else when you're not working, and--"

Eames turned fully to regale him with what Arthur would assume to be a crinkly smile, although the entire lower half of his face had been taken over by hair.

"Darling, real names? I had no idea we'd passed this milestone of domesticity," he said. The flippancy should sting, but the way Eames spoke was entirely warm and guileless, and Arthur decided not to be offended.

"We share condos," Arthur ticked off with his fingers, "in Prague, and Pretoria, and very recently Vancouver. You neglect personal hygiene around me and I'm in pajamas making coffee. We're wearing goddamn matching rings."

"True." Eames was smiling at him, but then the TV caught his eye again, some tiny player charging the goal accompanied by a rising tide of vuvuzela buzzing and the hysterical shouting of the announcer, and Eames turned around to pump his fist at the screen, yelling something in Afrikaans.

Arthur waited, unfazed, sipping at his coffee.

"Where were we?" Eames said, frowning as he turned back, and then made an "aha" expression at Arthur's upturned eyebrow. "The matter of our true identities."

"It was just a thought," Arthur said, feeling defensive. "You don't have to tell me your real name. It's probably embarrassing, isn't it, something drawn-out and over-British like Benedict or Rupert."

"Arthur."

"Oh fine, be that way." Arthur slumped into the rickety chair by the couch, the woven bamboo seat groaning in protest.

"No, Arthur. Arthur." Eames looked at him, deadly serious, and gradually he picked up on Arthur's persistent confusion, because he lowered his voice and grabbed Arthur's shoulders. "Arthur, okay? My real name is Arthur."

"Ah."

"Don't look so skeptical," Eames said. "It's a common enough name. Honestly, I've been meaning to tell you for ages, but--" he waves at Arthur's face "I knew you'll make that face, that half-disbelieving, half-queasy one. None of this is really my fault, you know? It's the name I was born with, and now you know it."

"Arthur Eames is your name?" Arthur said, deliberately slow, because he could feel the headache rising stiffly against the caffeine buzz. He didn't ask for this. Eames' real name was supposed to make things easier, not--

"Yes, Arthur, nice to meet you, I'm Arthur," Eames said. "But while we're getting that bout of mental gymnastics dispensed with, I also have a question for you."

And Arthur knew the question was coming.

"And don't feel pressured, alright, because I assure you I only ask out of honest curiosity," Eames said, fractionally more gentle, "and you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. What's your family name?"

"Eames."

Eames frowned. It looked fascinating; even his beard bristled. "Darling, that's not funny."

Arthur set down his drained mug. Many memories from the past few years were rising to the front of his mind, all cast in the new light that was Eames' actual name:

_Eames, cupping his face after the first time, grinning and mouthing "Arthur" again and again while the rain pounded outside--_

_Down in the third level like idiots, cornered by flying projections, and Arthur had a rocket launcher out but it wasn't enough. Eames stepping in smoothly, pulling into existence something so large that it blocked the sun, and on the side of the anti-aircraft cannon Arthur could see his own name painted in thick beautiful black letters--_

_Every time it mattered: By the shores of the Rhine, in a dubious high rise overlooking Cairo, through the rush-hour foot traffic in Beijing, in Vancouver, in the bare living room discussing furniture arrangements, and Arthur was just saying "No, we can't fit a claw-foot bath tub in here, don't you see the two Jacuzzis built into the walls?", and every other time Eames said "Arthur, I love you," in that earnest tone, so unlike his usual flippancy--_

_What the fuck._

Arthur held his head in his hands. "Eames, are you a narcissist?"

Eames had the nerve to look startled. "No!"

Then it was just Arthur.

"What's the matter?" Eames said, leaning down with concern filling every crevice of his expression. "And I'm sorry I pressured you like that, darling, we can forget this conversation if you want--"

"No," Arthur said. "No, we can't forget this fucking conversation."

"What--"

"Because my name," Arthur said, "is Arthur Eames, okay? That's a common enough combination, as you've so helpfully exemplified, and really, the only reason I asked for yours in the first place was because I felt awkward calling you by something that's printed on my birth certificate."

Eames was silent.

And then--"Bloody fuck. What the bloody fuck."

"Exactly," Arthur said.

Eames flopped back onto the couch. Distantly Arthur could still hear the game being played; it was at 1-1, how fascinating for a solid hour of running around.

"So I suppose I should discard that fantasy now," Eames said eventually, eyes on the screen.

"What."

"The fantasy where you reveal your true name, but then hint coyly that you rather liked mine better, and then we get it legally changed."

"That's a _fantasy_?"

Eames looked offended. "We aren't all visceral like you, you know? Some of us have emotional desires beyond the flesh, of love and commitment and--"

Arthur broke out into laughter. Eames dissolved too, shoulders and beard shaking and eyes crinkled to slits.

"Okay, so we have the same name," Arthur wheezed. "I think I'll just stick to calling you Eames."

"Likewise," Eames said, "I'll keep referring to you as Arthur."

They turned back to watching the game, and everything was resolved, or as much as they could be.

**_But then:_ **

Eames had a strange look in his eyes, which usually indicated some forthcoming brilliant strategy when they were out on a job, but which looked utterly incongruous and mildly disconcerting framed by the pillow.

"Oh Eames," he breathed. "I like the sound of that."

"Oh fuck no," Arthur said.

"Call me Arthur, would you?"

"Shut up," Arthur said.

**Author's Note:**

> At least their middle names don't match, right? Right?


End file.
